Election year adds twist to legislative session

Sunday

Feb 28, 2010 at 2:49 PM

Gov. Charlie Crist wants tax cuts for businesses and consumers, Senate President Jeff Atwater is making government spending more transparent and Sen. Dave Aronberg wants tighter rules for pain management clinics to help ensure they aren't run as pill mills. And each of the issues will make nice talking points as Crist runs for Senate, Atwater runs for chief financial officer and Aronberg runs for attorney general.

The Associated Press

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Gov. Charlie Crist wants tax cuts for businesses and consumers, Senate President Jeff Atwater is making government spending more transparent and Sen. Dave Aronberg wants tighter rules for pain management clinics to help ensure they aren't run as pill mills.

And each of the issues will make nice talking points as Crist runs for Senate, Atwater runs for chief financial officer and Aronberg runs for attorney general.

Election years can change the dynamic of a legislative session, especially when so many lawmakers are running for a higher office. Sen. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach, is also running for attorney general; Sen. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland is running for governor; Rep. Pat Patterson, R-Deland, is running for CFO; and several lawmakers are seeking seats in the U.S. House. The Legislature's annual two-month session is scheduled to begin Tuesday.

"Typically, election years bring added pressure and partisanship to the legislative session. This year will be that times 10 because of the fact that so many people are running for higher office," Aronberg said. "When you have leadership leaving, that really shakes things up. You have the three most powerful people in state government — the governor, the president of the Senate and the Speaker of the House — two out of those three are leaving for higher office."

The election year posturing isn't always a bad thing for voters, since lawmakers want something to boast about when they campaign.

"I would say it's probably a year for consumer activism, populism and anti-tax rhetoric. Every year divisible by two is the year of the child," said former Senate President Tom Lee, who also ran for CFO while presiding over the chamber four years ago. "You can expect motherhood and apple pie being at the center of a lot of the more political initiatives."

With the election on so many minds, there will be temptations to use floor debate for grandstanding and worries about how votes can be used for or against a candidate. There will be powerful special interest groups holding back political support until they see the outcome of the session.

"I saw all of the strange things that can happen from a public policy standpoint to try to gain brownie points in an election cycle," said Lee, noting there were also many lawmakers running for higher office in 2006. "It can create quite a sideshow as people try to shore up their base or overcome defects they have in their candidacy by either trying to advance their own initiative or by trying to embarrass someone else."

Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, said he hasn't seen signs yet of lawmakers behaving differently because of the election.

"Do I think that there may be a particular senator or House member or somebody that is laboring in the quietness of their own office thinking 'How will this play out if I vote this way? It seems to be a statewide issue or a geography issue or an important industry'? That may happen," Atwater said.

But he acknowledged there will be increased scrutiny as media and voters pay more attention to the candidates seeking to move up.

"Are they focused on the task at hand? Are they focused on making decisions we have to make about this session, or is it a grandstanding? Are they making events up on issues that have never been on their radar screen? That may be an indicator that some people are maybe trying to make more than the most of the moment, which that does happen in this process," he said.

Candidates, of course, say they do not change their behavior just because of an election.

"I try to do what I think is right and let the chips fall where they may. If you start to try to straddle every issue or be everything to everybody, then you really do a disservice to yourself and your constituents," Gelber said. "I'm not going to change what I do because I'm running for office."

Aronberg acknowledges that several of the bills he filed this year are issues that would be good for an attorney general candidate, but he said he's that's not new for him.

"I've been focused on attorney general issues my entire career — issues of consumer protection and public safety. That's been my niche in Tallahassee," Aronberg said. "There is no question I have been thinking about the attorney general's position since I was an assistant attorney general under Bob Butterworth 10 years ago, so it's not a surprise that my legislation has been focused toward that for the last eight years."

Crist acknowledge the election year will probably inject politics in the process, but he wishes it didn't.

"Instead of worrying about an election, and the next election, we need to worry about the next generation. That's what our focus should be as public servants. That's a very different role than that of a candidate," Crist said. "There will be some in this election cycle who are candidates and candidates only and some of us who are public servants."